Dive Brief: The U.S. Department of Energy moved Monday to repeal or alter 47 energy efficiency, climate reporting and other regulations, but experts say the Trump administration will likely face robust legal challenges. Most of the targeted rules do not fall into the so-called “lookback window” that allows the president and his party to repeal them easily under the Congressional Review Act, experts said. While the legal process for finalizing the proposed changes could be lengthy and legally fraught, President Donald Trump has broadly instructed department heads to cease enforcement of many regulations immediately. Dive Insight: The list DOE released Monday in part targets energy efficiency standards for appliances that have been on the books for years.  The latest round of attempted rollbacks appears to be driven by ideology more than industry pressure, said Andrew deLaski, executive director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.  For example, the proposed changes to oven standards would take the rule back to where it was in 1987, but manufacturers have invested significant sums in meeting the current standards, he said.  “They’re looking to get rid of standards that have been around for years and years,” he said.  Utilities also use efficiency standards to plan for how they intend to meet demand for load growth, which is expected to increase with the rise of artificial intelligence and manufacturing. In 2024, these efficiency standards are estimated to have saved energy equivalent to 6.5% of total U.S. energy consumption, according to a study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In a statement, the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned electric companies, said it broadly supports the DOE’s energy conservation standards program, including some of the items included in the latest round of proposed cuts. “The program has been one of the most successful

Intel Corp. has certified Shell Plc’s lubricant-based method for cooling servers more efficiently within data centers used for artificial intelligence. The announcement on Tuesday, which follows the chipmaker’s two-year trial of the technology, offers a way to use less energy at artificial intelligence facilities, which are booming and are expected to double their electricity demand globally by 2030, consuming as much power then as all of Japan today, according to the International Energy Agency. So far, companies have largely used giant fans to reduce temperatures inside AI data centers, which generate more heat in order to run at a higher power. Increasingly, these fans consume electricity at a rate that rivals the computers themselves, something the facilities’ operators would prefer to avoid, Intel Principal Engineer Samantha Yates said in an interview. “Upgrading existing air-cooling methods with immersion fluids can reduce data center energy use by up to 48%, as well as help reduce capital and operating expenditure by up to 33%,” Global Executive Vice President of Shell Lubricants, Jason Wong, said in a written statement. The immersion cooling fluids are ready to deploy and Intel is “providing an immersion rider warranty on top of our standard warranty terms to say we believe in this so much that you will be successful,” Yates said. Shell’s technology is the first of its kind to receive official certification by a major chip manufacturer, the companies said. Big Oil has been figuring out opportunities created by the growth in AI data centers. For Shell, the cooling fluids builds on its gas-to-liquids technology that the company has been developing for its lubricants business for decades. BP Plc sees similar potential for its Castrol lubricants business that has been working on immersion cooling fluids, although the unit is currently under strategic review and may be sold. The US oil majors,

House Republicans are proposing to eliminate a tax credit for electric vehicles and phase out incentives to develop clean-energy projects to help pay for President Donald Trump’s massive tax package. The incentives put in place by former President Joe Biden’s signature climate law have been ripe targets for lawmakers looking for trillions of dollars to help pay for extending Trump’s tax cuts. The president himself has had a bullseye on them, deriding them as part of the “green new scam.” But the draft legislation released Monday by House tax writers may not be as bad for producers of clean electricity from sources such as solar and wind, who feared a more aggressive phase out. First Solar Inc., the largest US solar manufacturer, rose 11% on Monday. Sunrun Inc., the largest US residential solar company, rose nearly 17%. “The proposal is mostly a win for US solar manufacturers and developers,” said Rob Barnett, senior analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “The fear is that the investment and production tax credits could have been gutted sooner.” In the Republicans’ proposal, popular production and investment tax credits for clean electricity would be phased out by the end of 2031 and new requirements against using materials from certain foreign nations would be added. Under the climate bill passed by Democrats in 2022, those credits weren’t set to expire until the later part of 2032 or until carbon emissions from the US electricity sector decline to at least 75% below 2022 levels, which analysts said would take decades. A tax credit for the production of nuclear energy would also be phased out by 2031 in the Republican plan. House Republicans opted to keep other credits, such as an incentive for carbon capture that provides as much as $85 a ton and extended by four years an incentive that

In this week’s Charging Forward, Alcemi has secured consent from the Scottish government for its 300 MW Kintore battery storage project in Aberdeenshire. Statera Energy has lodged an appeal after its 500 MW East Claydon battery storage project was refused planning permission, and more. Eku Energy has secured £145 million in financing to build its latest UK battery energy storage system (BESS) projects. Elsewhere, the Scottish government has approved two BESS projects in Aberdeenshire and Midlothian, while Highview Power has submitted plans for a 200 MW liquid air energy storage (LAES) in Ayrshire. In addition, UK firm Connected Energy has partnered with French electric bus battery manufacturer Forsee Power to develop grid-scale storage facilities using repurposed vehicle batteries. This week’s energy storage headlines: Alcemi secures consent for 300 MW Kintore BESS Statera Energy appeals 500 MW East Claydon BESS planning refusal Eku Energy secures £145m for new grid-scale battery storage DNV projects fourfold increase in UK battery storage by 2030 Island Green Power’s 105 MW Kinmuck BESS approved Buccleuch estate plans for 200 MW Salters battery storage approved Highview Power submits plans for Ayrshire liquid air energy storage Connected Energy developing grid-scale storage from electric bus batteries Elmya Energy submits plans for Shropshire BESS International energy storage news: Octopus Energy invests in 2 GW pipeline of solar and battery storage projects in Germany UK energy storage news Alcemi secures consent for 300 MW Kintore BESS UK battery storage developer Alcemi has secured consent from the Scottish government for its 300 MW Kintore Energy Storage Facility BESS project in Aberdeenshire. The project is located approximately 3km to the east of the existing Kintore substation on land south of Tofthills Avenue. Following the approval, Alcemi estimates the Kintore project will come online by October 2029. According to the company’s website, the Kintore BESS

Dive Brief: Federal tax credits that benefit energy developers, manufacturers and utilities face an early phaseout in a budget proposal released Monday by a key GOP-controlled House committee. The House Ways and Means Committee’s draft reconciliation package steps down the investment and production tax credits for nuclear power, wind, solar, batteries, geothermal and other clean energy technologies after 2028, and eliminates them completely after 2031. It preserves a comparatively generous credit for carbon sequestration and extends the clean fuels production credit. Energy industry groups and customers slammed the proposal, saying it would raise electricity prices, quash a manufacturing boom spurred by the Inflation Reduction Act and erode the United States’ competitive advantage on artificial intelligence. Dive Insight: The Ways and Means budget gives clean energy developers and producers until 2028 to claim the full 45Y and 48E tax credits for clean energy investment and production. The credit values step down to 80% in 2029, 60% in 2030 and 40% in 2031 before zeroing out in 2032. A separate credit for nuclear power production would phase out on the same schedule. As originally passed, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 allowed taxpayers to claim the full value of all three credits into 2032. “While our industry is ready to engage constructively and find a workable path forward, the Committee’s approach simply goes too far too fast,” American Clean Power Association CEO Jason Grumet said in a statement. “With energy demand surging, this is not the time for disruption.” The Ways and Means proposal also tightens eligibility for 45Y and 48E by requiring projects to be “placed in service” to qualify for the credit. The Inflation Reduction Act based eligibility on the year projects began construction, a more generous framework in a world where the timeline for grid interconnection and long-lead electrical

In an oil and gas report sent to Rigzone late Monday by the Macquarie team, Macquarie strategists revealed that they are forecasting that U.S. crude inventories will be up by 7.6 million barrels for the week ending May 9. “This follows a 2.0 million barrel draw in the prior week, with the crude balance again realizing tight relative to our expectations,” the Macquarie strategists noted in the report. “For this week’s crude balance, from refineries, we model crude runs higher (+0.3 million barrels per day). Among net imports, we model a very large increase, with exports down (-0.9 million barrels per day) and imports up (+0.6 million barrels per day) on a nominal basis,” they added. The Macquarie strategists warned in the report that the timing of cargoes remains a source of potential volatility in this week’s crude balance. “From implied domestic supply (prod.+adj.+transfers), we look for a small increase (+0.1 million barrels per day) this week,” the strategists said in the report. “Rounding out the picture, we anticipate a slightly smaller increase in SPR [Strategic Petroleum Reserve] stocks (+0.5 million barrels) this week,” they added. “Among products, we look for a draw in distillate (-0.6 million barrels), with jet stocks up (+0.7 million barrels), and gasoline nearly flat (-0.1 million barrels). We model implied demand for these three products at ~14.4 million barrels per day for the week ending May 9,” the strategists went on to state. In its latest weekly petroleum status report, which was released on May 7 and included data for the week ending May 2, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) highlighted that U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the SPR, decreased by two million barrels from the week ending April 25 to the week ending May 2. That EIA report showed that